After our last pass we departed the area for home. The F-14 lead told us that, although our attacks had been right on target, there were still plenty left for his flight to attack. As we departed he was calling over the F/A-18 strikers he was supposed to work with so they could deliver even more ordnance to the area. It was too dark when we left for me to make a valid damage assessment, but I would come back in the next day or so. When I did I was amazed at what I saw. The Navy must have really worked that area over that night—it was a mess—pieces of military vehicles everywhere. I visited the area in the weeks that followed and could see where the Serbs had attempted to clean up the damage, but the ground still bore witness to the beating it had taken. I was puzzled: why, during combat, would anyone without air superiority gather so many troops together in daylight. In war, stupidity rarely fails to get its reward.
The Truck I Couldn’t Forget
Capt Ron “Stu” Stuewe
I have several memories of my time in Kosovo. Most are good; some I would rather forget, but all of them are slowly losing their details with the passage of time. Still, one of my most vivid memories involves nothing more than a simple truck.
Maj John “Scratch” Regan, our 74th EFS commander, was on my wing. We had flown some rather effective sorties together during the preceding couple of days. On this particular occasion we had both dropped our bombs on some meager targets earlier in the mission. I say meager because we had direct hits with two tons of Mk-82s with limited secondaries. We were patrolling the western side of the province, just west of Dakovica (D-Town) when Scratch called over the FM radio that he saw a mover. Even during the waning period of OAF, we occasionally saw movers on the roads.
An interesting thing happened during the opening days of the conflict that had a direct impact on our ability to interdict movers. ABCCC had heard someone’s description of a convoy of assumed military vehicles that included a white car. ABCCC then said—in the clear over a nonsecure radio—that, in effect, we couldn’t hit any white vehicle. As a consequence, during the next few days it appeared that every can of white paint in Kosovo was used on any vehicle that could move.
It didn’t take Scratch long to talk my eyes onto the mover. It was immediately apparent that this target was different—big, green, and fast moving. More specifically, it was heading deeper into bad-guy land. I made one low pass behind the mover, and even before I grabbed my 15-power binos, I could tell it was a big truck. With the optics I could clearly see it was a green deuce-and-a-half truck with an open back end covered by a solid-brown object. I couldn’t quite make out what was in the back, but I figured it was just a dirty-brown tarp. I immediately brought the nose of my airplane back up to stay behind the truck and to gain back some altitude.
My next move is one that I will regret for quite a while—I called ABCCC for clearance to strike this target. There were rules about what we could and couldn’t attack, and, unfortunately, trucks weren’t approved. ABCCC’s initial reply was to “stand by.” So there I was, carving a lazy figure eight at about 14,000 feet behind this truck with Scratch slightly high and behind me. I was all set to roll in from behind, lock a Maverick onto this truck, and blow it to smithereens. A Maverick costs several times more than a truck, and it was certainly not the most cost-effective weapon choice in this situation. However, it would be most spectacular and have the highest kill probability—and the guy driving this truck deserved it.
I was appalled that someone would have the audacity to drive his truck at 80 miles per hour down an open highway in the middle of the day. At the time I was merely shocked; in retrospect I am almost disgusted. I now think about all of the FACs from an earlier time—the Mistys, the Nails, the Coveys. Those guys flying the Ho Chi Minh Trail in their F-100s, O-2s, and OV-10s just hoping to catch a glimpse of a truck through triple-canopy jungle. There I was watching—just watching—this Serb drive down the road like some teenager trying to see how fast his dad’s pickup will go.
While I waited several long minutes for approval, the truck made it into D-Town and began winding through some of the lesser streets (the ones without the rubble of destroyed homes). Simultaneously, a voice came over the strike frequency and asked if I could positively identify my target as “armor.” Laughingly, I again explained that it was a truck, a military truck, a deuce-and-a-half truck! Immediately, I was informed, “Do not, I repeat, do not strike that target.” This was followed 25 seconds later by another voice telling me not to engage the target. Reluctantly, I broke off the attack.
That was my last sortie of Allied Force. Scratch and I went on to find some other targets. I wound up earning a rather important medal for this particular excursion into combat and someday hope to show it to my grandson. I will, however, remember that truck more than anything else we did that day. Even now I often wonder what that driver is doing. Perhaps he told his buddies—at some cheap Belgrade bar—about the day he gave the finger to two A-10s in broad daylight, or how he thinks we were too scared to attack him. Perhaps he never even knew we were there. I knew that with one push of my right thumb, several hundred pounds of missile would have slammed into the top of that truck and cartwheeled it into a fiery heap. It’s that image—seen only in my imagination—that I will remember the best.
The Call Sign Was Cub 31
Capt Marty “JD” McDonough
I joined the squadron at Aviano on 28 March and was immediately tasked to go to Vicenza to be one of the squadron’s CAOC representatives. Eight days later I returned to Aviano and flew my first sortie. After a couple of weather days, I was selected to be a member of our advance team and was sent to Gioia del Colle.
I will not soon forget my first opportunity to fly after the squadron moved to Gioia. It was 14 April 1999 and only my second sortie of the conflict. I was the flight lead, Lt Col Surgeon Dahl was my wingman, and our call sign was Cub 31. The first half of our AFAC sortie in the eastern half of the KEZ was uneventful. We were flying above a broken deck, which made our search difficult because it was hard to see targets around and through the clouds. After completing our first vul period, we went to the tanker; by the time we returned the weather had cleared significantly. I checked in with Maj Joe “Dice” Kopacz, the other AFAC on station, and learned he was busy dodging AAA. When he finally got a chance to talk, a couple of expletives were quickly followed by a recommendation not to come over to his area. He had found some targets along the Kumanovo Valley road and had, in his words, “stirred up a bees’ nest.” He suggested I give it a little time to cool down in case I wanted to come over and take a look. I took his recommendation to heart and continued to search for targets south of Urosevac.
Shortly after Dice departed, Moonbeam (ABCCC) transmitted that Bear 21, an F-16 AFAC in the western half of Kosovo, had found and was preparing to engage a large convoy of more than 100 vehicles. Bear 21 had requested that Moonbeam send any available fighters, and I was not about to miss an opportunity to engage some targets. I called Bear 21 and told him that my flight was holding in the eastern half of Kosovo and that we were available as strikers. Since I was fourth in his stack of fighters, I continued to look for targets on my side of the KEZ.